December 2017

Faith has been taking Driver's Ed. Here she is doing some practice driving on December 2nd.

That afternoon we visited the Festival of Trees. The kids decided they needed these ugly Christmas sweaters from Smith's for the occasion. (Christian's even lights up!)

On the 6th Bud moved the popcorn machine to his room to make more room for my Bunco hosting table set-up.

December 8th Faith got her driver's licence!

That day Bud got some highlights in his hair (which his stylist calls "guylights" haha!)

I had gotten some beauty items including this face mask tissue sheet. Christian asked if he could try it and I let him. His comment? "It burns!"

Because we were getting home from our trip just a day before Christmas, I made up these tags in advance to have them ready. Our neighbor gift included a giant can of nacho cheese from Sam's Club and a bag of tortilla chips!

I thought our Christmas gift to the ward sisters from the Relief Society presidency turned out kind of cute:

I hosted bunco on the 7th and I wanted to make some cute snacks which were still sugar-free. I found these ideas on Pinterest and had some fun with them:
olive, fresh mozzarella, and carrot penguins

strawberries with sugar-free cheesecake filling and sugar-free chocolate eyes

The 9th was Christian's ballroom competition in Provo.

He did great and got a silver ribbon!

That evening we went to Scrooge at the Terrace Playhouse.

The evening of the 10th we left for our cruise! I'll cover the trip in the next blog entry :)

When we came back from paradise, this echoed my thoughts exactly-

Here is the baby that missed wearing the jacket Grammy bought her to go on walks with grandpa.

It was Christmas Eve and we sure had a huge pile of laundry to deal with!

I love how the kids were "hiding" in this pic of us on our way to church.

We went to mom and dad's for the Christmas Eve party and had delicious food. We played a name that tune game using a tiny piano,

and rolled dice to take turns unwrapping a saran wrap ball full of prizes.

Afterward, we went through the Ogden park.

Of course we remembered to drive by Dr. John's, as well! Disappointingly not too many cars in the parking lot this year.

The kids woke us up around 6:30 am on the 25th. Not too much under the tree since our gift was the cruise, but Santa brought some X-box games, and from us Christian got this Walking Dead themed hoodie,

and Faith got a Puerto Rico backpack.

Of course there were stockings full of treats! (this is the inside of Bud's Skittles candy book)

It had snowed, so Tony shoveled a section of the back patio for Skittles to potty.

We went to my parents' first, but I didn't remember to take pictures. Then on to Braeggers'. We were spoiled by both as usual!

We came home and the first thing Bud wanted were the owl pellets given to him by grandma and grandpa Peterson. He dissected one and found lots of cool rodent bones, including a full skull of something larger than a mouse!

Tony deep fried a turkey and we ate turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce. 

On the 26th the kids spent the day playing video games,

and Skittles enjoyed her bacon scented ball from Tammy

and pig ear from Grammy.

New Year's Eve we were at Braeggers' party! It was a small group this year, but still fun. We had pulled pork sandwiches this year.